Silent mourners: Disenfranchized paternal grief, continuing bonds, and meaning-making after perinatal loss

Perinatal loss is a profound form of bereavement; however, fathers' grief is often socially and clinically unrecognized. This study examined meaning-making in bereaved fathers in Kerala, India. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, one-to-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten fathers who had experienced miscarriage at or after 12 weeks, stillbirth, or neonatal death within 28 days of birth. Six superordinate themes were generated: the invisible mourner, performing strength while privately breaking, frozen in the moment, already a father, grief layered on grief, and faith as a paradox. Fathers described perinatal loss as a rupture in anticipated fatherhood, relational identity, family futures, and spiritual certainty. Their grief was hidden while continuing bonds were maintained through memory, prayer, symbolic imagination, and private remembrance. The findings theorize paternal perinatal grief as socially organized disenfranchized mourning and call for father-inclusive, culturally responsive bereavement care.